The papers in this special section focus on telecommunication services in automation applicaitons. The evolution of automation systems has always been the result of continuous improvements to state-of-the-art systems, occasionally punctuated with significant paradigm and architectural changes that acted as innovation drivers. This happened with the industrial revolutions, which had in their origin the appearance of disruptive technologies, such as the steam engine and machine tools (first industrial revolution); electrification, mass production, and assembly lines (second industrial revolution); use of microprocessors and software (third industrial revolution).